As
air feeds an inferno, so too does innuendo breed a feeding frenzy
of speculation. And, as we would gaze upon a fire, we can't help
but be drawn to the sensationalism of good gossip. Facts? Who
needs facts when you have a feeding frenzy? The dangerous thing
about speculation however, is that like the fire it too spreads quickly and
sometimes out of control. The saga takes on a life of its own and
opinions are influenced solely by passion; but in the absence of
truth. Sometimes it can cloud the issue until you forget what the
whole thing was originally about.
Let
us get back to facts. Last week I was at a bar and got into an
interesting conversation with a girl I had seen around but had
never before met. She said, “An opinion is a statement
with the fear of being wrong." Whenever I would offer my
opinion however, she seemed to be annoyed or amused, I couldn’t
tell which. “You, on the other hand, offer opinions without the
fear of being wrong,” she said. “But that’s not an opinion,
it’s just an observation,” she continued.
Can
an opinion be wrong? To me an opinion is ones point of view, based
on circumstantial information (some fact, some not), which is
subject to discussion and debate. To her, if it wasn’t a fact,
who cares? Some of the great philosophers in ancient Greece
thought it was everyone's duty to engage in theories, opinions,
and intellectual debate – the pursuit of higher thought. And
some of those theories -- not facts at the time -- were later
proved to be correct and become the foundation of many great
discoveries. At the same time, many facts -- commonly accepted in
history -- were eventually proved to be wrong:
The world is flat. Therefore, fact is also a matter
of interpretation, isn't it?
I would suggest that someone's opinion,
is an idea subject to change.
So
what is fact? The English Thesaurus refers to fact as; information
or truth. For the sake of argument, lets say fact is indisputable
truth. The next problem we face in getting to the truth, based on
facts, is that sometimes a fact can have different implications
when combined with other relevant information. You can indeed make
a statement that on it’s own is true in fact - yet untrue in its
implications. When other truths, relevant to the situation, are
inserted into the story it takes on a new meaning. Is the telling
of only part of the truth the same as telling a lie?
What
motivates people to tell the truth anyway? What motivates people
to create false truths? Is it anger, hate, fear, jealousy, envy?
It has been written that all things stem from fear or love. If
that were true, it might suggest that hate emerges from fear. But,
fear of what? Fear of
not getting what you want, loosing
what you have, not knowing who you are, or not knowing the heart
of someone else? People
lie for all sorts of reasons including, but certainly not limited
to, financial gain, self-protection and jealousy to name a few.
But, in telling the truth, you never have anything to remember.
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2003 - All Rights Reserved
